


Morning Shows The Day (or, Iruka and Kakashi's Excellent Adventure)

by AvocadoLove



Category: Naruto
Genre: Altered Mental States, Kid Fic, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvocadoLove/pseuds/AvocadoLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One moment ten-year-old Umino Iruka is pulling his most daring prank, and the next he's in the middle of a bloody battlefield. What is going on, and who is this strange masked boy with him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jofelly on the KakaIru fest.. Special thanks to the many people who patiently listened to me whine as I figured out the plot, and others who worked to correct it. Alexb49 , Yukinoomoni , Book_People , Tucuxi and Schwarztkd . You guys are great. :D
> 
> This is a slightly edited version of the one that was put on the fest, and I broke it up into chapters for easier reading.

 

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 **OoOoOoO**

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It was a fine autumn day. The sun was shining, with sky the special kind of clean deep blue that only comes about after a storm, and ten-year-old Umino Iruka was currently running for his life.

"Come back here you little twerp!" came a high shriek, off in the distance.

Iruka barked out a laugh and pushed himself harder, faster, leaping over a block of wooden crates and darting down a narrow side-street. "Hurry, Mizuki! This way!" he yelled, sensing his partner in crime starting to flag behind him. "I know a shortcut!"

Mizuki was panting, red-faced with exertion. "She really means it," he gasped, wide-eyed. "She's going to murder us."

Iruka flashed him a quick grin. "Only if she only catches us, and she's slower than—" But he never got to finish. The two boys rounded the next corner and then nearly crashed into each other trying to skid to a stop.

Anko stood on the other side of the alley, arms crossed casually across her chest and radiating death. "How slow am I, Iruka-kun?"

"Uh… Hi Anko-chan," he replied, weakly.

The girl stepped forward and for a brief second her new forehead protector caught a glint of sun. "Hand it over. Now."

 _Crap_ , Iruka thought, while Mizuki made a whimpering noise and not-so-subtly inched behind him for protection. It was his fault he'd gotten Mizuki into this, his fault if Anko beat them both up and they never lived down the shame…

"Okay, okay…" he said peaceably and reached into back pocket. His hand came back with a lacy looking bright red bra. Iruka held it out almost as if it were a shield between him and the genin. "Here it is. I didn't take anything else, I swear."

The girl's eyes narrowed and despite the fact Iruka knew he was in real danger of having several bones broken in the very near future, he couldn't quite keep back a flash of pride.

Anko had just been so insufferable after making genin last month; an entire year earlier than Iruka, Mizuki, and the rest of their class. She had been hand-picked to learn under one of the three great Sannin, but even their year's number one rookie hadn't been able to keep her underwear drawer properly locked – there wasn't a trap set yet that Iruka couldn't get around, given enough time.

He had only meant to get her attention. She'd been so distant lately and –

Anko took another dangerous step forward. "Give it back, Umino."

It was being addressed by his family name that did it. The Anko he had grown up with was never so formal, so cold and distant.

It was a split-second decision. As Anko lunged the last few feet to snatch back her bra, Iruka jumped to the side. His sandals caught hold of the brick wall of the alley and held – Iruka wasn't the best in class overall, but he was no slouch when it came to chakra control. A quick flash of concentration and expelled breath and he propelled himself upward, over the edge of the roof, his prize still clutched in his hand.

"Get back here!" he heard Anko shriek. Then, "I'm going to gut you!"

Iruka turned and sprinted across the top of the roof, prize in hand and flapping behind him like a flag of victory. And despite the fact he could hear Anko leap the roof, gaining on him with every step, he still laughed – loud and carefree.

The roof slanted down from its apex and came to an abrupt end. There was another roof out beyond, a few feet too far away to be counted as anything like a safe distance.

He gathered as much chakra as he could in his feet and leapt...

...

Iruka came back to himself, face down in the dirt and aching all over.

"Ugh," he groaned, or tried to. His mouth was dried to cracking with the odd taste of chalk and sawdust. He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, blinking furiously to clear the haze from his eyes. What happened? Had he fallen? Had Anko caught him and beaten him up?

Little by little, his vision cleared, and he came to realize that the yellow-brown haze was in fact dead grass. The stalks were long – at one time maybe thigh-high, but something or someone had pounded them down flat.

There was a bright splash of red, too.

It took a few moments of staring dumbly at it before Iruka realized it was blood.

He shot to his feet and nearly fell again as a wave of nausea and dizziness rolled over him. He groaned, pressing his palms over his eyes and after a few long seconds it passed. And finally, finally he was able to raise his head and take a good look around.

The village was out of sight. He was instead in a field—unfamiliar and unexpected—with dead yellow weeds broken by sharp upthrusts of jagged bone-white rock. Scattered here and there were the dark, unmoving bodies of men and women.

"What…?" Iruka swallowed hard and took a few tentative steps forward to the closest of them. It was a man—a shinobi, judging by the dark pants and flak-jacket—lying on his back with his face to the sky. His eyes were distant and cloudy in death.

"There's been a battle here."

The voice came from right behind him. Iruka yelped and whipped around, arms flailing in what was supposed to be a defensive stance.

A boy stood behind him. He was about Iruka's age, ten-years-old or so, with wild silver hair and a dark skin-tight mask which covered his nose and the lower half of his face, leaving just his blue-gray eyes visible. Most importantly he wore a Leaf headband.

"W-what happened?" Iruka stammered. "Where am I? Are—Are all these guys dead?"

The other boy regarded him coolly for a moment or two. Then he shrugged and walked past Iruka to kneel by the nearest body. "This is interesting," he said, voice just as calm as if they were talking about cloud formations. "Do you see the hole in his chest? It is as though someone punched right through it."

Iruka, in fact, hadn't looked that closely and after he did he quickly turned away again. But it was far too late – the sight and smell of charred meat seemed to hit him at the same time and a moment later he was on his knees again, retching up things he didn't even _remember_ eating.

He was peripherally aware of the other boy watching him mildly, and then walking over to check over the bodies one-by-one. Iruka only stopped gagging once his stomach was empty, about the same time the other boy had finished with the last of them. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Iruka asked, "Are any of them Leaf, too?"

"No. They appear to be nin from Rock, Mist and Sand. Interesting." The other boy cocked his head to side for a moment in thought. He then walked back to stand in front of Iruka, looking him up and down, and obviously finding him lacking. "You've never been on a battlefield before." It wasn't a question. "What are you doing here?"

Iruka bristled, and he almost welcomed the feeling. He'd rather be indignant than sick to his stomach. "I don't know!" he snapped and stood. The other boy was about his height, or just a hair taller with calm, half-lidded steely eyes. "I was just in the village and then… I don't know!"

"You're just a kid," the other boy noted.

"So are you!"

"I," he replied, with cool dignity, "am a Chuunin."

Iruka opened his mouth to say something scornful at that, but on a second glance he realized that the other boy was, in fact, wearing a chuunin vest. "But…" Iruka looked around, bewildered and determined not to look too closely at any of the bodies. "What happened here? Did you…?" He couldn't quite finish.

Something hesitant flickered in the other boy's eyes and he shook his head. For the first time, he seemed just as unsure as Iruka. "No, I didn't kill them," he answered. "All of these nin were jounin level. However, my sensei could have." It was hard to tell because of the skintight mask, but Iruka got the impression the boy was frowning. "We should go look for him and we should move as far away from this area as possible."

"Why?"

The other boy gave him an annoyed look. "This cell may have been in contact with others and reinforcements might come to investigate if they don't check in."

A shiver of fear ran up Iruka's spine. He glanced quickly around, as if expecting enemy-nin to come melting out of the grasslands at any moment. "O-okay," he agreed, although it didn't really matter because the other boy was already walking away. Iruka hurried to catch up. "I'm Umino Iruka."

The boy glanced over his shoulder. "Hatake Kakashi."

The family name sounded vaguely familiar, but Iruka couldn't place it. Maybe his mother or father had spoken of it while he hadn't been paying attention.

A new thought struck him and Iruka stopped short, staring at his hands. They were empty – they had been empty since he'd woken up.

Kakashi had stopped at well. "What is it?"

"Anko's bra is gone!" Iruka blurted. "Uh… I mean…" Kakashi stared at him and Iruka scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Never mind. It wasn't important."

And, face burning, he hurried on.

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

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**

Kakashi set a fast pace in the direction he estimated Konoha should be. He kept himself on high alert, eyes tracking back and forth through the rolling grasslands. This wasn't Fire Country – the lack of forests and the acidic smell of the soil told him that much. And for all of his missions, he'd only really been behind enemy lines once before, and that had been with Sensei and several jounin. Not one useless pre-genin boy.

What could have brought him here? And why? _How_? One moment Kakashi had been playing shogi with Nara Shikaku (He hadn't wanted to socialize. He'd much rather train, but of course Sensei wouldn't hear of it…) and the next thing he knew he was waking up, flat on the ground with a sharp headache drilling a hole from his left eye back into his skull.

The headache had faded after a few minutes, but that was little comfort. Nothing about this situation made any sense.

There was no teleportation jutsu he had ever heard of that could bring a person several hundred miles from Fire country to… wherever it was where the forest ended. Not to mention somehow bypassing the village's protection grid. And why would the same jutsu – which must have cost a considerable amount of energy to cast – also bring along a pre-genin?

Umino Iruka certainly looked useless enough, Kakashi thought, glancing at the other boy from the corner of his eye. An able enough fighter, perhaps, when push came to shove, but nothing that would set him apart from the rest –

Kakashi stopped mid-step, then slowly turned to look back at his companion. Iruka wasn't carrying anything useful with him like a pack or weapons, and he wore a light colored civilian's outfit with mesh peeking out from his sleeves and pant legs. A sheen of sweat had broken out over his brow, even though Kakashi hadn't been walking very fast – by shinobi standards, at least.

The other boy gave him wary look. "What's the matter? Is someone coming?"

"I know you," Kakashi said, studying him intently. Dusky skin. Long brown hair tied into a pony-tail. Almost completely unremarkable, save for a distinct scar across the bridge of his nose. "You're from Konoha."

"Uh… Yeah?"

"I never asked," Kakashi explained. "I only assumed you were." No, he thought, it was more than that. He had simply _known_ the other boy was not the enemy. He could feel it in his core: this was a companion. A teammate.

But Kakashi was just as certain they had never met before.

Iruka stared at him with naked confusion writ large on his face and shifted his weight very subtly to the right, as if preparing to bolt. Paranoia. Good. That spoke of some field experience, at least.

Kakashi turned away from him, his mind chewing over the matter.

"It's against regulations to send a pre-genin out into the field," Kakashi mused out loud. "Can you think of any reason why anyone outside the village would want you? Any bloodlimits in your clan?"

The other boy started to shake his head, but then hesitated. "My mom's ANBU," he said softly, with a swift look around as if afraid the nearby rocks were listening.

Unusual, but not spectacular. Kakashi frowned: he could think of several reasons why a potential kidnapper would want himself – son of The White Fang, apprentice to The Yellow Flash. But Iruka seemed depressingly normal.

"What about a genjutsu?" Iruka asked, "My academy sensei said that some of them can be so real you're not even aware you're trapped in one…" he trailed off as Kakashi fixed him with a quelling stare.

"I would know if this were all an illusion," he told him, holding back the 'obviously' only by sheer force of will.

Iruka looked abashed for a split second, then angry. One of his hands balled into a fist. "Oh yeah? If you're so smart then what happened? Why are we here? Where are we?"

Kakashi let out a silent exasperated sigh and glanced up at the cloudy sky, deep in thought. "There doesn't seem to be any valid reason why anyone would bring us both out of the village. But, here we are. That leaves us very few options," he said. "It is possible we've both been affected by a memory jutsu."

"A memory jutsu?" Iruka repeated doubtfully. His brows knit together. "But, I don't remember being hit by a jutsu."

"That's why it's called a memory jutsu," Kakashi said slowly, as if he were talking to an idiot. Iruka scowled at him, and Kakashi went on, "It would explain how neither one of us know how we got here, but I feel as if I know you." He waited a beat until Iruka took a sharp breath and nodded: apparently he felt the same way about Kakashi.

"There would be no way to know how much memory we have lost. Weeks, possibly months," Kakashi continued. "In any case, you must be a genin to be ordered out to the field, and since I am a chuunin, that makes me your captain."

The other boy looked distinctly unimpressed by this theory. He lifted his hand and touched his bare forehead. "If I'm a genin, why don't I have a forehead protector?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe you lost it."

"Maybe you don't know what happened and you're only guessing," Iruka shot back.

Kakashi eyed him. "Maybe you're right. Even the lowliest genin knows not to talk back to their superiors." He had the pleasure of watching Iruka bristle, but made a quick cut-off motion to forestall any more back-talk. "Either way, we should find cover before dark." And he turned his back, continuing on.

"You are not my superior!" Iruka snapped behind him, but when Kakashi continued to ignore him he heard the other boy rush to catch up.

They walked in silence for a few minutes until Iruka asked. "So… what do we do now?"

"A shinobi's number one priority is to complete the mission. We were sent out for some reason, some purpose. So it is our duty to complete what we were sent to do, at any cost."

Iruka went quiet again, seeming to turn over Kakashi's words. "Do you really think I graduated to genin?" he offered, tentatively.

"Minato-sensei said he wanted to take on two others so he could be in charge of a proper three-man cell." Actually, his sensei had been threatening it for some time. Kakashi suspected it was yet another attempt to force him to 'make friends'. It was getting irritating. "We should be on the lookout for him and for another of our age, most likely a female."

"You think whatever caused us to lose our memories might have split us all up?"

"Obviously."

Iruka scowled at him. "Obviously," he repeated back in the same, snide tone of voice.

Kakashi ignored him, refusing to be drawn into a childish debate. He only increased his pace, and felt smugly satisfied when Iruka soon had to pant to keep up.

They kept moving quickly through the day – Kakashi insisted on a vague zig-zag pattern to lose anyone who might have tried to follow them from the battlefield. He allowed himself to relax and slow his pace somewhat only when they were several miles away with no overt sign of pursuit.

By the time the sun started to sink towards the horizon, Kakashi had gravitated towards a small stand of trees which were growing around a small spring – the only one he had seen so far in the vast, semi-arid landscape.

Iruka threw himself to the soft grass with a grateful groan of relief while Kakashi walked over to test the water for poisons.

"We can't stay here for long," Kakashi warned, once all of the standard testing jutsu came back negative. He lowered his mask and cupped water to his hand to drink: it was cold and sweet. "We need to find a defensible position for the night."

"What?" Iruka squawked, sitting up. "We can't go stumbling around in the dark out there. We'll break our necks!"

" _I_ won't," Kakashi said, simply.

He had the pleasure of seeing the other boy puff himself up again as if to start arguing, but then it seemed he thought better of it. Iruka crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Do you have any chakra-wire?"

Eyebrows rising, Kakashi reached into one of the weapon packs slung to his hip. (Iruka, of course, carried none at all which only reinforced Kakashi's theory that he must be almost completely useless) and tossed him a roll of tightly wound wire.

Iruka caught it in his right hand and grinned. It was… a surprisingly open expression. Something about it made Kakashi suspect the other boy didn't normally have a grim air about himself: it must have been the shock of seeing the battlefield. This seemed a more natural look on him – smiling, with a glint of mischievousness in his brown eyes.

"Give me a half-hour. I'll make sure this position is defensible," Iruka announced, tossing the wire lightly once in his hand before catching it again.

And he did.

Kakashi was mildly impressed despite himself. Within the space of twenty minutes Iruka had rigged the small grove from top to bottom with a variety of traps, using only chakra-wire, some well placed stones, a couple of Kakashi's borrowed shuriken, and a small amount of Iruka's own chakra to set it all.

"How did you learn all of this?" Kakashi asked, poking one of the thin filament lines with the blunt end of a dead branch. The trap activated at once and the branch snapped in half with enough power to break a man's femur.

Iruka grinned again and scratched the back of his head. "My dad's a tokubetsu-jounin. He specializes in seals and traps – I'm not too good with seals, but once in a while we go camping and he shows me all kinds of great stuff like this." He shrugged. "Will it do?"

In actuality the traps were better than Kakashi himself could accomplish. He didn't admit _that_ of course, only nodded and stood from his crouched position. "We sleep in four hour shifts. I'll take the first and you'll take the last."

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

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Iruka slept badly. He and Kakashi had positioned themselves back-to-back to give any potential enemy less chance to sneak up on them. But even when it wasn't his turn to keep watch, Iruka felt aware–almost hyper aware–of every shift and movement in the other boy; tension along Kakashi's shoulders from sounds outside the grove that Iruka could barely detect, his slow breathing that was a bit too regular to be anything but practiced and ready.

The shadows seemed to come alive every time Iruka closed his eyes – the unfamiliar night sounds all magnified and distorted. And when he did fall asleep, he only dreamed of the dead shinobi on the battlefield; wide open eyes and a gaping cauterized hole in his chest where his heart should be.

It was almost a relief to trade places with Kakashi in the deepest hour of the night, and keep watch until the dawn. Secretly, Iruka suspected the other boy got as little sleep as he had, though when Iruka tried calling his name, tentatively, to see if he was awake, Kakashi ignored him.

No attacks came with the dawn. Sitting there, his arms wrapped around his bent knees, Iruka felt his spirits rise with the sun. He was hungry, cold, and tired, yes… but yesterday's horrors seemed much further away now; the sharp edges of surprise, confusion, and fear now dulled.

And if Kakashi was right about the memory jutsu, that meant Iruka was a shinobi now. Maybe an important one.

Mizuki would be so jealous… assuming he wasn't a genin by now, too.

Iruka stared at his hands as the pale light began filtering through the trees – they didn't look any different, his spread fingers didn't seem any longer. He didn't feel any older.

But the leaves had just been turning red and gold in Konoha, and here in this glade he could see new leaves bursting open from shoots: Wherever this place was, it was spring.

His thoughts were interrupted as Kakashi picked that moment to wake up – going from a seemingly feigned dead-sleep to awake and smoothly rolling onto his feet without any outward transition at all. It was more than a little cool, although Iruka was careful not to admit it.

"So, you're up?" Iruka asked impishly, and got a chill nod in return.

"We should break camp and move soon. We can't risk staying for too long in one place if we don't want to be noticed by enemy patrols."

Iruka scowled at him and when Kakashi moved off to check the parameter, he muttered to himself, "Oh, I slept fine. Thanks for asking… Oh, and you're welcome for setting the traps that kept us safe last night, by the way." Then, even lower, "Bastard."

It didn't take long to undo the simple, but lethal, traps. After Iruka curled the last of the chakra wire back into a tight roll, he went in search of Kakashi. He found the other boy knelt in front of a small spring, mask lowered and drinking from his cupped hands.

With his whole face exposed, Kakashi seemed even younger than before, somehow; the air of mystery gone. He was just another ten-year-old kid like Iruka, with a thin jaw and high, almost delicate cheekbones. The paleness of his skin seemed to almost make his steely blue eyes stand out more. All in all… he was almost pretty.

But those eyes…

A cold shiver rolled down the length of Iruka's spine as Kakashi looked up and locked gazes with him. He felt dizzy then—unexpectedly weak—and he had to reach out to a nearby trunk to steady himself.

Kakashi swiftly pulled up his mask and asked, "What is it?"

"Your left eye." Iruka gestured up to his own. "When you looked at me just now, I felt…" He paused, trying to put into words what he barely understood in feeling. It was as if, for a moment, he had been looking down from a tall cliff and expecting to see ground below, only to see sky. "There's something _wrong_ with it."

"What do you mean?" Kakashi covered the eye for a moment then dropped his hand and glanced into the water, assessing his own reflection. "It's fine."

The eye did look fine. Normal even – and that had been the problem. But Iruka found himself shaking his head, frustrated and irritated with himself. He pushed off from the tree; the dizziness had passed. Kakashi probably thought he was being a baby. "It was just a feeling, but it's gone now."

"You were remembering something?"

"I…I don't know. It didn't feel like a memory."

He expected the other boy to laugh or to make a snide comment. Kakashi just looked at him thoughtfully, again covering his eye briefly. Then he shrugged. "Intuition can be a powerful shinobi tool. Tell me if you feel that way again." He stood. "Let's get moving, sensei."

Iruka nodded and took a half-step to follow. Then he paused. "Wait, what did you call me?"

He saw Kakashi hesitate for the barest of seconds. "I said we need to find my—our Sensei."

"Liar. You called me your sensei," Iruka accused.

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did!"

Kakashi regarded him for a moment, his eyes flat and bored. Then he reached down and swiftly clipped his weapons pouch to his belt and moved off.

Iruka grinned after him, feeling that he had scored a point against the other boy at last. "You know what? I bet _I'm_ your superior," he called, happily rubbing it in, before he hurried to catch up.

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

* * *

 **Next** : A first test of shinobi skills doesn't go as planned...


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

"I'm starving," Iruka complained an hour later, a hand clutching his belly. "I swear, when I get back home I am never complaining about my mother's cooking again."

Kakashi spared him a contemptuous glance, even though he was no less hungry – his stomach had taken to clenching painfully over the last few hours.

"Can't we stop?" Iruka wheedled, after a few moments of silence. "Just for a little while?"

Kakashi glanced around. The sun was almost directly overhead now and cast no shadows on the empty land around them; miles and miles of dry, weedy plains with no break save for the occasional up-thrust boulder. No paths. No roads, and worse… anything taller than the thigh-high grass was immediately visible.

"No."

"I could hunt," Iruka said, as if Kakashi hadn't spoken. "I know how to rig snares."

Kakashi's stomach pinched inward with a soft gurgling sound. He ignored it. "We have to keep moving." Find shelter, civilization, their mission directives… something. Anything.

… Why hadn't Sensei found them yet?

He frowned under his mask. He was a Chuunin, and had been for years. He didn't _need_ Minato-sensei to come to rescue him. He'd gone on missions alone, before.

But that didn't change the fact that whenever he had gotten into trouble – real, life-threatening trouble, the man had always been there to back him up. Always. Even when it was annoying… _especially_ when it was annoying. Minato-sensei had taken him in after his father had – well, after his father's death. He cared for Kakashi as if he was his own.

And he wasn't here. He could be delayed, perhaps. Or hurt. Maybe badly hurt. Maybe even –

"This is nothing like playing ninja," Iruka grumbled to his left, kicking at a clod of dirt sullenly.

Kakashi clenched his jaw in irritation, although some part of him was grateful for the distraction. "Playing," he repeated with as much contempt as he could possibly put into the word. He knew, instinctively somehow, exactly how the other boy would react.

Sure enough, Iruka's brown eyes flashed in annoyance. "Yes, _playing_ ," he repeated. "You never play?"

"I never needed to. I already know all the shinobi rules."

To his surprise, Iruka barked out a laugh. "That isn't why people play." Then he glanced at him, his smile fading slightly. "But I get the feeling that you don't know that, do you?"

Kakashi met his gaze, lingered for a moment, and then looked away. "Tell me shinobi rule number four."

"A shinobi must see underneath the underneath," Iruka repeated automatically, then grinned. "Number fourteen?"

That was easy. "A shinobi must prepare for all eventualities," he said. "Seventeen and twenty-five."

"A shinobi must keep his weapons maintained at all times. A shinobi must not show tears," Iruka repeated, as if by rote. Then he blinked, as if surprised at himself. "Huh. I guess I remembered more from the academy than I thought."

Kakashi gave him a grudging nod. "Very good."

They walked in silence for a few minutes and Kakashi could feel the weight of Iruka's hurried side glances when he thought he wouldn't notice. Finally Iruka said, "When we get back to the village, I'll introduce you to some of my friends… We could have fun?"

Something clenched in Kakashi's heart, suddenly and without warning. He reached up to rub at his chest, trying to will it away. "I don't need to have fun."

"Yes you do," Iruka replied with a nod. "I'll introduce you to Izumo and Mizuki and Anko. Um, well, if she's in the right mood." His nose scrunched up as he said the last name, as if he smelled something bad. It made the scar crinkle up a little, Kakashi noticed. Not in a bad way, either. "She's been so… so _snobby_ since she became genin. Like she's too good for anyone but her Sannin-sensei." He paused and added almost wistfully, "It's like she doesn't even want to be friends anymore."

A number of sarcastic (and true) responses flickered through Kakashi's mind. Perhaps this Anko person was taking her duties more seriously and had no patience for children's games. But before he could give voice to any of them, Kakashi caught sight of movement – far, far out over the rolling hills of sun-dried gold and brown. Something large.

He stopped short and held up his hand, squinting to see more of it. Heedless of his command, Iruka crashed into his back.

"Oof! Why'd you stop?" Iruka demanded.

Kakashi merely pointed and Iruka followed his gaze. His brown eyes widened. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure." The moving object along the horizon seemed to be slowly resolving itself now—an indication it was getting closer—split into two distinct shapes; one bigger than the other.

"Get down!" Kakashi barked, and fell to his stomach among the high weeds.

Iruka followed a second later; wary, tense. "Is it the enemy?"

"No." He shook his head. "A trader's wagon."

The other boy stared at him for a long, long minute as if Kakashi were insane. Then, "That's it? You scared me." He pushed his arms under him, peeked up over the tall, dried grass. Kakashi grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back down.

"Shinobi rule number twenty-one," he hissed.

Iruka hesitated. "A shinobi must be vigilant in enemy territory?"

Kakashi admitted to himself, very reluctantly, that it seemed Iruka did indeed know all the rules. So why didn't he follow them? "Yes. If they are travelers, they may be friendly with the local hidden village. Or they may be ninja in disguise themselves, hoping to lure us out."

"That… seems a little far fetched."

"Care to stand up?" Kakashi asked, mildly. "Let me know if they start hurling shuriken at you."

Iruka rolled his eyes and shoved his shoulders into Kakashi's, roughly. Kakashi supposed he could have avoided it… if he wanted to. It might have caused too much of a disturbance in the grass.

"Fine." Iruka gave in with a sigh. "So what do we do now, oh wise Chuunin-sama?"

Kakashi considered it for a moment or two and then reached up to untie his forehead protector. He slipped it into one of his vest pockets. The sun was high overhead, and he didn't want to risk a glint from the shiny metal. "We gather intelligence."

He rose into an easy crouch, just high enough to see over the tall grass. The caravan was closer now; three distinct shapes, not two. They seemed to be heading in their direction, but at an angle. Kakashi lowered himself back down.

"This way. Follow me."

Together, the two boys made their slow way forward, carefully crawling on their stomachs through the tall grass. Kakashi stopped every twenty feet or so for to peek up and check their progress.

Eventually they came to simple road – no more than a cleared path in the sea of golden grass, broken by two deep wagon wheel ruts. A scraggly pair of bushes sat by the roadside, and Kakashi hunkered down behind them, gesturing for Iruka to do the same.

The other boy had weeds stuck in his hair and his white outfit had been stained brown with dust and dirt. He gave Kakashi a sour look as he took position beside him, but this close Kakashi could hear his sharp, excited breathing.

He could also feel Iruka's chakra spiking upward, like physical pinpricks of anticipation along Kakashi's skin.

"Calm down," Kakashi hissed. "Anyone with any sensitivity will be able to feel your chakra."

Iruka's eyes widened. "They can?" he squeaked, and immediately his aura's presence increased, now tinged with naked fear.

"Stop that!" Kakashi snapped. "Didn't they teach you how to mask your chakra in the academy?" But he knew it was a foolish question the moment the words were out of his mouth, and Iruka's wide eyes only confirmed it. If he had been taught, that knowledge was now gone with whatever else the memory jutsu had taken.

Kakashi was about give an order to withdraw– let the foolish genin get as far away as he possibly could while Kakashi stayed and continued scouting. But he could hear the faint jingle of harness, the creak and quiet popping sounds of wooden wagon wheels bumping along the deep track. If Iruka broke cover now, he could be spotted. They were out of time.

Without allowing himself any further thought, Kakashi reached over to lay the palm of his hand on Iruka's back. "Concentrate on me," he commanded. "Match your breathing with my own. Slow down your heart-rate, if you're able."

"You want me to slow down my _heart_?"

Kakashi repressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Close your eyes and concentrate," he said, simply. "Or we'll both be discovered."

Iruka shot him a desperate look, then at the empty road. He nodded once and squeezed his eyes shut.

It took a few moments, but gradually the anxious aura decreased to something less glaringly obvious as Irura's chakra naturally fell into rhythm with his own. It was easy, almost suspiciously easy, as their auras overlapped one another, locking into place like old trusted friends.

Kakashi closed his eyes as well and let his senses expand.

He could feel Iruka's presence, right next to him. The genin's chakra stores were less than what he'd hoped, and the potential to increase them substantially was not there. Yet Kakashi also felt, with a sixth sense he could not name, that Iruka already had chakra control as good as or better than Kakashi's own. Efficient rationing of his limited resources would help him overcome the lack – Iruka was a prime candidate to become a medic-nin someday. Perhaps that was the reason Minato-sensei had picked him for his team.

Concentrating, Kakashi could feel other presences as well. By his count there were three civilians on the upcoming wagon. Their undeveloped chakra systems were quite distinctive. Two adults, one child and –

"What is it?" Iruka asked, his eyes still closed.

Kakashi glanced at him and then realized, belatedly, his regular breaths had taken a sudden hitch. "A Shinobi," he whispered back. "At the front of the wagon – possibly a guard or escort. Chuunin level."

He had to give some credit to Iruka: now that he was getting the hang of basic concealment: his chakra did not spike again at the news. "What do we do?" he breathed.

"Stay hidden. If we move now, with them this close, it's certain we'll be seen."

"Oh-okay." His voice wavered only slightly.

"If we are spotted, I'll protect you."

Kakashi didn't really know what had prompted him to say _that_. They were on a mission – or at least, they he knew logically they _had_ to be on a mission of some sort. The outcome was surely the top priority and if Iruka couldn't defend himself… well. The weak died on the battlefields all the time. Kakashi had seen it with his own eyes.

He also knew, with a growing sense of inner disquiet, that leaving Iruka behind for the good of the mission had somehow… become unacceptable.

 _Those who abandon their mission are trash_ , said a quiet murmur in the back of his mind, like a dream half-forgotten. _Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.  
_

Kakashi frowned to himself, and dismissed the errant thought with a shake of his head.

It only took a few minutes for the wagon to rattle its way over the last gentle rise and come, slowly, into sight.

It was a simple caravan, the type Kakashi had often seen carrying merchants and their wares back and forth out of Leaf Village when he was a small child – before the worst of the war. It was an unspectacular thing: a simple flat bed with raised wooden sides, covered by white canvas and pulled along by two dusty looking mules. He could see the man who must have been the merchant himself, sitting up upon the driver's seat with the reigns clutched loosely in his hands. A woman sat beside him, fingers flashing as she worked a needle into some red fabric.

The shinobi himself was stationed in front, walking at the head of the wagon. He was an unremarkable man of average height, weight and build with a scraggily half-grown beard. Mostly, he looked bored to death, with eyes half closed and staring straight ahead obviously not expecting any danger to come from the empty fields. His metal forehead protector caught the sun once or twice as they came down the gentle slope.

He wore the insignia of Hidden Rock Village.

Kakashi felt his heart plummet: for a man to be this bored in the middle of a war… he clearly thought he was safe in his place. They had to be deep within Earth country, far, far across enemy borders.

Kakashi held his breath as shinobi and wagon passed – so close he could have reached out and stabbed the Rock-nin through the foot if he had a mind to.

The wagon creaked as it passed, and the last thing Kakashi saw as it slowly rumbled off into the distance, was the little civilian girl he had sensed: she sat at the very end of the wagon, eating some sort of red fruit, kicking her bare heels into the air and singing some sort of travelling tune.

Then they were gone.

Kakashi let out a long breath and belatedly realized that he still had a hand upon Iruka's back. He pulled his hand back abruptly, as if burned.

"That was a Rock-nin," Iruka whispered.

Kakashi shot him an annoyed look. "I thought I told you to keep your eyes closed."

Iruka shrugged a shoulder in reply. "But he wasn't on alert," he continued, unrepentant. "Like this was a just a boring escort mission and he wasn't expecting any trouble." He paused and reached up to scratch his nose in thought. "We must be really far from the border for anyone to be that relaxed."

Kakashi nodded his agreement, and briefly wondered how anyone could be that ignorant in chakra use and still manage to be so observant. Iruka had drawn almost exactly the same conclusions as he.

Kakashi kept himself still and waited for a count of sixty before carefully crawling out from under the brush, back into the relative clearing of the wagon track.

"We'll follow this road," he said, indicating the way opposite to where the wagon had gone. "Once we come to a town or a village we can find out exactly where we are and where we need to go."

"Why that way?" Iruka had followed Kakashi out from the brush and reached back to remove the band from his hair. Unbound, it fell to his shoulders. He ran his fingers absently through it, untangling more bits of grass.

Kakashi caught himself staring and abruptly averted his gaze, blinking. What was wrong with him?

Perhaps it was that bit of unease that made his next words come out as they did; short and cold. "Because the shinobi went the _other_ way. We've already had a close call, thanks to you."

Iruka froze at the words. His hands dropped from his loose hair and when Kakashi met his gaze there was an angry glint in his narrowing eyes; something that made Kakashi instantly think 'uh-oh', before Iruka turned on his heel and sprinted down the road…

… towards the departing wagon.

"What are you—" But it was too late. The other boy had already rounded the bend in the road and was gone.

Kakashi's quick mind flashed through his options: A kunai lobbed at Iruka's back would stop him… although there was no guarantee Kakashi could hit a moving target with the blunt end rather than the blade. He supposed he could flash-step and tackle him down, but even a half asleep shinobi would be able to feel the chakra sudden output from a half-mile away.

With a mental sigh, Kakashi gave up and followed.

Iruka was a quick runner, but he slowed as he approached the wagon. Kakashi did as well – darting from one scraggy patch of tall weeds to another to keep from being spotted. He kept close enough to observe and jump in if – _when_ – the idiot got himself in trouble.

He had to admit, though, that without a forehead protector, hair loose, and dirty from slinking along the ground… Iruka looked much more like a typical civilian boy than a genin.

Kakashi watched with mixed horror and concern as the Iruka came within sight of the wagon. He broke into another jog and waved to the little girl in back, ducking his head and grinning as she stopped her song and waved back at him.

It was insane, brash and utterly stupid, but Iruka went right up to her – chakra closed around him tight and nearly hidden – with no attempt to physically conceal himself at all.

And, to Kakashi's increasing agitation, it seemed to be working. The shinobi was walking by the pack animals up at the very front of the wagon, while Iruka had come from behind.

He must have kept his voice down, or else the sound of the animal's hooves concealed his voice. Either way, Iruka walked along side the wagon for a few minutes, happily chatting with the girl. When he returned to where Kakashi was hiding, after giving a slight bow that made her giggle and try to bow back from her seated position, it was with a triumphant smile and a fresh red fruit in hand.

Kakashi met him safely out of sight of the wagon. He had to clench his fists to keep them from shaking. "What," he asked, through clenched teeth, "Did you think you were going to gain from taking a risk like that?"

Iruka only flashed him a smile and bit into the fruit. "Information," he answered, smugly, eyes still glinting with dangerous mischief. "I learned if we follow the road back about five miles, we'll come to a crossroads. From there, we turn right and a day's walk will take us to the nearest village."

Kakashi stepped up to him, barely an inch between them. "If that girl tells the shinobi what she's seen—"

"I told her I was looking for my parents." Iruka grinned, completely unconcerned by Kakashi's proximity. The expression turned up the scar across his nose. "We come from a band of horse-traders. I got lost playing and…" he trailed off significantly and then held out the fruit. "You want half?"

Kakashi glared at him. "That was a chance you did not need to take."

"You need to have more faith in people," Iruka answered, then sighed when Kakashi continued to glare coldly at him. "I'm fine. If the shinobi puts it together, we'll be far away from here… Will you just take the stupid fruit?"

Kakashi did – not because he agreed, but only because his stomach was nearly cramping with hunger. He hated the way Iruka smiled again, as if he won something.

"That was still a stupid risk," he muttered, after biting into the fruit and pulling his mask back up. "We could have found the way on our own. I am the ranking shinobi and you will run your plan by me next time."

"Maybe," Iruka answered. "But I knew I could do it… and I knew you'd be there if I got in trouble."

There was an odd quality to the other boy's voice – vague and far off, as if he was hardly aware he had spoken at all. Kakashi cut him a glance and roughly handed the fruit back. "Put up your hair," he told Iruka, roughly. "You look like a –" He stopped. "It's not appropriate for you to look like that."

Iruka put his free hand to his hair, as if he had forgotten completely. Then he reddened and quickly dug around for his hair-band.

 

* * *

When the attack finally came, there was virtually no warning at all.

They had been walking for the entire day – Kakashi insisted on not taking the easy way and using the wagon-track directly, but walking further off, keeping it within sight. The endless gold-brown fields were slowly thinning and eventually gave way to blank, crumbly shale. The further they traveled, the uglier and more exposed the landscape became. Iruka hated it.

When he felt a sudden gust of wind, he turned his face towards it, wary of a storm. He barely heard Kakashi's warning shout, and fumbled when the other boy shoved a kunai into his hands.

The wind picked up sharply and Iruka felt a thick pressure against his ears – like the popping deep in his head he got when he dived too fast underwater.

The windstorm dropped to nothing in an instant. And suddenly there were three men standing in a triangle around them. They were all tall, fit, with mean, leering faces and standard-issue chuunin flack jackets. Their forehead protectors displayed not the double stylized rocks of Hidden Rock, but a single musical note.

Upon seeing the boys, one of the men threw back his head and laughed, loud and hard. "Well, well. This certainly explains a few things."

Iruka shot Kakashi a glance, but the other boy had all of his attention on the other nin, one hand hovering over his weapons-pouch in warning.

"Who are you?" Iruka asked. He tried to look as he ought – a competent shinobi clutching his kunai and ready for a fight. But inside, he felt small and weak. He wasn't ready for this… wasn't ready for _any_ of this. "What do you want with us?"

The laughing man – the leader by the looks of it – didn't answer, and instead jerked his chin towards his two companions. "Master will want the Copy-nin alive. I don't care about the other one."

"Iruka-sensei," Kakashi hissed in warning. "Move—!"

Whatever else he was going to say was lost to the winds. In a flash the three closed in on them. Two men converged on Kakashi, one came at Iruka.

He was fast. So fast that Iruka didn't have time to breathe or think – he could only react.

Iruka swept his kunai up, striking a double-set of shuriken out of the air he'd only seen coming at him from the corner of one eye. Then he ducked, nearly flattening to the ground as the man cut the air with his long-sword. Had Iruka been an instant slower, it would have taken his head clean off. The blade missed the top of his skull by a finger-width, and when the man struck again—a short downward chop—Iruka threw himself to the side and the blade hit rock, sending sparks flying.

Scuttling desperately to the side, Iruka grabbed at the ground with his free hand and threw a handful of gravel at the nin. It bounced harmlessly off his flak jacket. The man looked down at his chest and then snorted, amused.

"Interesting," he said, and to Iruka's amazement he sheathed his sword and came at the boy with bare hands alone.

Somehow, Iruka managed an awkward stab with the kunai, but the ninja easily batted it away and grabbed his wrist in a tight grip. His fingers jerked open as the man squeezed pressure points; the kunai fell to the ground.

And the man almost casually delivered a hard backhand slap that snapped his whole head back and made his ears ring. Then he struck Iruka again, on the other side of his face.

The man released him and Iruka fell bonelessly to the ground, disoriented. Vaguely, he felt his body being turned and his wrists brought together behind his back – some sort of fibrous rope wrapping around them.

"Nimble little shit…" The man muttered above him and jerked the boy's arm up painfully. Iruka let out an explosive breath, which served to clear his head a little. Something hard and heavy pressed into his mid-back – the man's knee – pushing him into the ground.

"You might be worth something to us after all," the man continued, lowly, almost to himself, still crouched over Iruka. "By the time Master is done with you, you'll be happy to join my clan. You won't even know the difference—uck."

Something slammed into the man—Iruka felt the impact through the man's body where his knee dug into his back—and at once the pressure upon him eased. Iruka rolled and sat up the best he could with this hands tied behind his back.

Kakashi was fighting the shinobi.

He didn't know where the other two men were; though judging by Kakashi's torn right sleeve and the blood running down his arm, he had managed to get the better of them. Iruka watched, stunned as the other boy almost casually evaded the nin's sword. He looked more like a graceful dancer than a fighter, but Kakashi's steely eyes contained the calm coolness of an efficient killer.

Kakashi's hands flashed quickly through some unfamiliar signs and abruptly there were three of him standing where one had been before. The two perfect clones and one real boy jumped towards the shinobi – attacking in perfect synchronization.

Iruka glanced swiftly around until he found his lost kunai. It had fallen blade-first into the rocky shale a few feet away. It took some awkward maneuvering, but he was able to grab it in his bound hands and start slicing at the bonds.

The rope fell away not a moment too soon. The shinobi, sword now gone, shrieked something and slammed his hands on the ground. A rolling wave shook the earth. Dirt and shale lifted, liquid-like, in an impossible tidal wave. It rose – six feet high, then ten, before it crested and came back down with hideous force.

Iruka got a glimpse of one Kakashi throwing himself in front of another—one of the clones trying to protect the original, no doubt—before the wave struck. The clone poofed out of existence and Kakashi was swallowed underground.

"NO!" Iruka shrieked, "KAKASHI!"

Alerted by his scream, the shinobi turned. His eyes narrowed and he bent to pick up his sword.

Again, Iruka didn't have time to think – only to react. When the blade came for him he ducked forward instead of back, and threw up his forearm, meeting the sword nearly at the hilt and letting the wire mesh under his shirt protect him from a nasty slice. The shinobi could have cut him down with a second strike, but he hesitated; stumbled. An earth-wave tidal jutsu must have cost him a lot of chakra, and in that moment he had made his misstep.

The man's eyes widened. It all seemed very slow at that point, as if everything had already been planned out in Iruka's mind, the chorography already fixed, and all he had to do was complete the steps.

Iruka ducked again under a clumsy sword-strike and moved forward under the man's guard. He slammed the kunai up, right under the shinobi's chin.

The man fell as if the strings had been cut from his legs, leaving Iruka standing, shocked.

 _Oh no_ , he thought, blankly, _What have I done_?

He turned, seeking someone… anyone. But there were only the still bodies of the man he'd fought and the two Kakashi had killed. The earth-wave jutsu had receded tamely back into the ground with its caster's death, and left the land looking wholly undisturbed, every tuft of grass and rock neatly back in place.

Iruka took a hesitant step forward. "Kakashi?"

There was no answer.

Taking in a sharp breath, Iruka sprinted to the place he'd last seen Kakashi – he had to guess. Nothing looked disturbed. He fell to his knees and started brushing away pebbles, lifting small stones as big as his fist and throwing them aside. Finally, Iruka began clawing at the shale in desperation.

"Kakashi!" he called, again and again. "Kakashi!"

No answer. There was nothing but dirt and rock under his fingers. Iruka yanked at a tuft of grass and tossed it away.

 _No, no, no_ … Iruka thought desperately. How far down could an earth-wave take him? How much air could there be down there? What if he never found him at all?

"Kakashi…" His voice broke and Iruka paused to run a forearm over his eyes, brushing away building tears, before continuing to dig.

A moment later his searching hand hit something soft and cold. Fingers. Three of them, curled and sticking out of the soil under where Iruka had tossed away a rock. Iruka cried out and dug faster. The soil seemed less densely packed directly around the body, and it wasn't long at all before he had followed the fingers to uncover Kakashi's whole hand, then arm, and followed it up to his head.

Kakashi gasped a great lungful of air as he was unearthed, and fought Iruka a little until Iruka whapped him upside the head and went back to trying to clear away the worst of the dirt from his eyes and pull Kakashi's mask down so he could breathe better.

"I think that stupid mask saved your life," Iruka told him, half-choked with laughter and tears as Kakashi coughed the dust from his lungs. Iruka felt like hugging him… and throttling him, for some odd reason. He settled for trying to dig the other boy's legs free from the ground. "It must have stopped the dirt from getting in."

Kakashi only nodded weakly and then spit. It came out brown with dirt. "Wha 'appened?" he asked, roughly.

Iruka felt the blood leave his face. He glanced over his shoulder and then quickly back again when he caught sight of the unmoving form. "I killed him," he said, lowly, closing his eyes.

A rough hand over his own made him open his eyes again. Kakashi was staring at him intently, the grime on his face making the white of his eyes stand out oddly. " 'would 'ave killed you," he said, then winced as if the words hurt and spat once more before speaking. His voice came clearer now. "He would have killed you. He almost killed me."

"I know." But it didn't make him feel any better.

The sun was very close to setting, and since Kakashi seemed too exhausted to move, it was up to Iruka to search the bodies for anything useful. He didn't throw up this time, although he thought that was more due to the fact that his stomach was completely empty than anything to do with his own bravery.

One of the men Kakashi had killed had a canteen of water. The second, the laughing man, had a scroll of some sort. Someone had drawn a childish picture of a face in hiragana on one end. Iruka took both items, gingerly, and tried not to look at their dead men's gaping wounds very closely. The shinobi he'd fought had nothing, save for the sword; Iruka didn't want to retrieve his kunai from the man's throat, so he took the sword instead.

He came back to find Kakashi much more alert with his mask pulled back up, trying to bind the long cut on his right arm with strips of his own torn shirt. Iruka bent to help him and winced at the grit he found pressed into the wound.

Kakashi made no sign he was in any pain. He picked up the canteen. "Use this to wash it out," he said. "I think the nin had some sort of paralytic on his weapon when he cut me."

Iruka's fingers fumbled and he leaned back to stare at the other boy in shock. "Wait, you think you were _poisoned_?"

"Probably." Kakashi nodded to his own arm which lay limp at his side. "I can't feel or use it at all. You'll need to wash out what you can before it spreads."

Iruka stared at him for a second. "You're… really calm about this."

That earned him a smile. Kakashi smiled with his eyes, Iruka noted. "Shinobi rule number thirty-one," Kakashi replied, wearily.

"Even the best shinobi will occasionally be injured – I know that!" Iruka snapped, and then took up the canteen. "Idiot," he added, to cover up his own nervousness. They'd only covered dressing wounds in lectures in class. He was so far over his head he couldn't see the sky anymore and if he did something wrong…

Shaking his head to dispel that train of thought, Iruka took several short, calming breaths and set to work.

Even though he was desperately thirsty (and knew Kakashi was even more so, having fought three men and then been buried alive) he used the entire contents of the canteen to wash out the wound. It wasn't as clean as he would have liked, but it would have to do and he caught Kakashi wincing as he bound up the slash in his arm – Iruka took it as a good sign he could feel something.

"Can you walk?" Iruka asked, once he was done.

Kakashi hesitated, and then nodded. He rose slowly, breathing through his nose as if worried he'd pass out if he stood too quickly. But he stood on his own two feet without help and Iruka let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh," he said, remembering. "I found something on one of the shinobi. He had a scroll." He withdrew it from his pocket.

Kakashi took one look at it and paled. His good hand reached out and snatched the scroll before Iruka could even blink. "That mark…" Kakashi said, turning it so that the odd picture of the face was visible in the fading light. And even with everything that had happened so far, this was the first time Iruka had ever heard Kakashi sound fearful. "That's a henohenomoheji – the scarecrow." He looked to Iruka, eyes wide. "This is mine."

 **  
**

* * *

**  
**

It took more out of Kakashi than he wanted to admit to start walking again. The scroll with his identifying mark was tucked safely in one of his vest pockets. It hadn't opened to any of the basic unlocking jutsus he'd tried, and he was too drained to attempt any more involved ones.

It sat, a hard lump against his chest, confusing and damning all at the same time.

Kakashi didn't dare say it out loud, but there were only two reasons for a scroll with his signature to be in enemy hands: Either he had been betrayed, or somehow he was the betrayer.

He knew he was no traitor – he had certainly bled enough times for the sake of the village to prove that. He doubted Iruka was either. Surely, no one with a traitor's heart would take the time to dig a comrade out of the hard earth. Even with their recent memories gone, Kakashi felt nearly as sure about Iruka's loyalty as he did himself.

But why would an enemy-nin have a scroll with _his_ mark?

His left foot caught on a rock and he stumbled, nearly tripping before Iruka gripped his elbow and steadied him. Kakashi grunted his thanks, honestly too tired to do anything more. He had used a lot of chakra in the fight and his right arm was completely numb and useless to him except for brief flashes of stabbing pain. He reached up, rubbing at his eyes tiredly and glanced at the rising full moon.

Two hours. He would give them two hours to put distance between themselves and the scene of the fight. Then he was going to sleep. Iruka could take the first watch, just this once.

"Kakashi?"

"Yes?"

Iruka bit his lower lip and glanced over. A guilty expression. "I think you were right," he said, "Earlier, I mean, with the memory jutsu? The man I ki—The man I was fighting said something about me 'joining his clan' and that by the time his Master was done with me, I wouldn't 'know the difference'."

"Aa," Kakashi said tiredly, and carefully stepped around a sharp looking boulder. It took more effort than it should have. His right ear had taken to ringing, too. He dug at it for a moment and came away with yet more dirt. The ringing didn't stop. "Perhaps you were what they meant by Copy-nin."

The other boy made a face. "What does that even mean, anyway?"

He considered his answer for a moment. "The Uchiha's Sharingan is often called the copy-eye due to the ability to observe and replicate most jutsu." He gave Iruka a sidelong glance, noting his brown hair and eyes. "Do you have any Uchiha blood?"

"No, my grandfather's father came from Wave Country," Iruka answered with a shake of his head. Then, "You?"

"No."

Iruka fell silent for several long minutes and Kakashi focused on placing his feet carefully along the path so he wouldn't slip or stumble again. They were only at a walking pace, but he felt oddly breathless; his arm throbbing dully in time with the beat of his heart.

"Kakashi?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, wary. "What is it?"

"I killed that shinobi," Iruka said softly. His head was bowed, hands clenched into fists at his side. "I… I didn't even think about it. My body just – it was like I'd done it before and I knew exactly what I had to do." The last all came out in an embarrassed rush and ended with another guilty glance at Kakashi, as if unsure of what he'd think of him.

"I've killed on missions," Kakashi murmured. The world seemed to have gone soft around the edges – the words sounding odd to his own ears, as if pulled from another place. "Do you think any less of me?"

"No!" Iruka said, quickly.

"Then don't think any less of yourself."

"Yes Kakashi-taichou," Iruka murmured, but graced him with a quick, hesitant smile.

And somehow, Kakashi was able to dredge up one of his own in reply.

 **...**

Kakashi had planned on a two hour walking distance from the fight to be safe, but pure fortune granted them with a place to rest after only one.

They came to a low rocky hill. Kakashi meant to only sit down for a moment and catch his breath – dizziness and an odd hard pounding of his heart made it difficult to keep pace– when he spotted a dark patch, hidden in the cleft between two boulders.

Iruka went to investigate and came quickly back, his eyes wide and bright. "It's an entrance to a cave," he exclaimed, "And it's filled with supplies and food. Come on." He hefted Kakashi's good arm over his own shoulder and helped him inside.

Kakashi felt, in a distant sort of way, that he should have been indignant about the treatment – he wanted to be put-out, he wasn't completely helpless – but now that he was standing again it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. When Iruka led him inside and let go, Kakashi sank down, gratefully, on the smooth ground; he was breathing hard, and his arm was throbbing horribly.

The world seemed to go gray and fractured around him, brought back together only when someone tipped back his head and cool water dribbled over his exposed lips.

Kakashi blinked and found he was laid flat on his back; his own flak-jacket pillowed under his head. Iruka's concerned face hovered over him. "Drink it," Iruka repeated, and Kakashi realized that the other boy had been talking for some time. "I know it doesn't taste good, but I put a packet of immune boosters in… Just open your mouth."

He did, and coughed when Iruka tipped too much in, too fast. Kakashi raised his good hand and pushed the canteen away. Immune boosters wouldn't help if he was poisoned, anyway. Besides, there was something he needed to say… something important, only he couldn't – ah, there it was.

"Can't stay here," he rasped, between hard-won breaths. "Supply cave… Someone'll be assigned to check…Every few days."

Iruka's jaw tightened. "But you're sick and I can't carry you very far."

The world seemed to phase in and out again for long extended moments. Kakashi was shivering – he was afraid, he supposed. He might even be dying. "Go," he heard himself say. "Take the scroll…"

The other boy's eyes narrowed. "Shut up. I'm not leaving. Now open your stupid mouth and drink your stupid water."

Iruka put the canteen back to his lips and it took nearly all of Kakashi's flagging strength to push it away.

"That was an order."

"I don't care!" Iruka snapped.

Sucking in a deep breath, Kakashi levered his working arm under him and sat up, bracing himself against the wall. The world tilted and swayed alarmingly, and all he could do was grit his teeth and try to ignore it. "Listen to me," he said. "You are shinobi – sometimes it becomes necessary to sacrifice a companion for the sake of a mission."

Iruka's mouth worked for a moment or two, his dusky skin reddening as he struggled to find words. "You… IDIOT!" he said, or rather, yelled. He grabbed Kakashi by the shoulders almost as if he wanted to literally shake sense into him. "You're only guessing that we're on a mission. And if you think I killed someone and dug you up just to let you die now, well… well…" he sputtered for a moment, anger briefly overcoming his ability to speak. "Well you're WRONG!"

His head hurt. His arm hurt. Everything hurt. "It's the shinobi way," Kakashi said, flatly. Then he winced, knowing he had to drive the point home. "I would do the same if… if you were in my place."

Iruka froze for a long, long minute. "I don't believe you."

Kakashi started to shake his head, but stopped when the movement made the world spin. "Someone'll come… They will track us here and kill both of us. Take the scroll and save yourself."

"I don't care," Iruka snapped, although his voice broke on the last word. He set his jaw and blinked several times in rapid succession. Kakashi watched him, warily. "I don't abandon my friends," Iruka said at last. "And I think you're lying when you say you would abandon me." He smiled, wavering slightly, and the back of his hand reached out to brush Kakashi's cheek. It was a surprisingly… mature action. "You said the other day that you knew I wasn't the enemy. Well… I know you, too."

Kakashi sucked in a breath. "Iruka…"

The moment broke and Iruka's flushed. He withdrew his hand and instead shoved the canteen back at Kakashi. "Now shut up and drink your water. I'm going out to lay some traps."

He rose, turning his back to Kakashi. And in that moment Kakashi saw another boy, a few years older and taller, with spiky black hair and orange goggles. Something hot prickled behind his left eye as the boy turned to glare at him with dark eyes.

"Of course those who break the rules are called trash," the boy said, then looked over his shoulder to stare at Kakashi. "But those who abandon their companions are worse than trash."

All Kakashi could do was stare at him, wide eyed. His left eye watered and he tried to blink it away, but it was no use. The tears were coming whether he wanted them to or not.

The boy turned to go.

"No," Kakashi whispered. "No, no. Come back… Obito… come back…"

"… Kakashi?" came another's voice, very far away. Someone shook his good shoulder trying to get his attention.

His tears fell at last, moments before he passed out.

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	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Notes: Sorry about the bit of delay, folks. Hopefully this'll answer some questions about what's going on. Also, it might be a good idea to do a quick re-read of chapter one. Trust me. :)**

* * *

**OoOoOoO**

* * *

Iruka must have drifted off during the night despite his best intentions to say up and keep watch, because the next thing he heard was Kakashi's slurred, "They're here…" A moment before the first ward was tripped.

Iruka came completely awake at once – it felt as if his stomach had contracted into a tiny ball and fallen down to his sandals. He scrabbled for a moment to light an oil lamp and then to find the sword he'd taken from the dead man. It had slipped from his fingers in his sleep.

Kakashi had somehow pulled himself upright again to lean against the wall. Strands of silver hair were plastered to his forehead with sweat and his right arm hung dead at his side. While he no longer seemed delirious, his eyes were still strange and unfocused – especially the left, whose pupil was blown wide open. "Go," Kakashi breathed. "You might still escape if you leave now."

Iruka's fingers found the handle of the sword at last. He gripped it tightly, his breath coming short and hard. He didn't acknowledge Kakashi's words: it was difficult enough to force his voice past a squeak. "I'm going to see if I can stall them." He stopped and swallowed. "If… if they let you live and you escape, tell my mom and dad how I – that I died as a shinobi. Okay?"

"Iruka…"

But Iruka was already standing. He made sure to take the lamp with him as he strode down the passageway to the mouth of the supply-cave, leaving Kakashi to wait in dark. There was no need to alert the enemy-nin to exactly where Kakashi was.

The passageway itself was not long, but it still felt like it took him a long time to come to the end of it. Every muscle seemed to be a-twitch, as if his own body was fighting the command to go and face his own death.

He reached the mouth of the tunnel at last. Setting the lamp down, Iruka shielded it so the light wouldn't immediately be visible from the outside. Then he crouched at the side of the entrance and waited for a sight… a sound… anything.

He wanted to cry, but he wouldn't.

And in those dark moments, waiting and knowing Kakashi was waiting somewhere behind, out in the darkness, unable to defend himself and alone, Iruka thought he caught a glimpse of what his academy sensei was always talking about. The will of fire. It meant doing your duty. Not because he had to do it, but because there was someone who depended on him, and who would suffer if he failed.

Iruka knew he would do whatever it took. If he was lucky maybe he could wound a couple of them… maybe even kill one. Anything to give Kakashi more of a chance to escape if he could. Maybe Kakashi was right… maybe he should have left while he could. Others would have. But he knew deep inside that was not his shinobi way.

There was no way he could live with himself if he left Kakashi to die.

The minutes passed into silence and he heard something – the slight fall of loose shale outside, as if a foot had slipped. Iruka licked his dried lips and closed his eyes, trying to focus in on where the noise had come from. It sounded as if it had been close to one of his carefully prepared traps. Perhaps—

"Whoa!"

He heard a loud exclamation and felt a ping deep inside him as one of his chakra wire traps went off – empty.

"Geez, that almost got me!" the voice yelped. Then, "Wait… this is one of Iruka's traps."

Iruka opened his eyes, staring out into nothing, hardly daring to breathe.

"What?" asked another voice. Higher pitched. Female. "Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah. He's gotta be around here somewhere! Hey!" the man called, "Iruka-sensei! Are you—" A sudden whapping sound and then a barked, "Ow!"

"Dobe," a third voice grunted. "Don't be so loud."

"In there!" the woman shouted. "Do you see that? I think it might be a cave."

And a moment later three shinobi had squeezed through the large crack in the rock. One blond man, one young woman with pink hair and a dark haired man, perhaps eighteen or older.

All three of them wore Leaf headbands and all of three of them stared, dumbfounded, as Iruka rose from his defensive crouch.

"You're from Konoha?" Iruka asked, weakly, still clutching the sword in a ready position.

The blond man didn't seem to hear him, only exploded, "Iruka? What happened to you?"

"It's not a henge," the dark-haired man intoned. His eyes were swirling with red, gleaming in the weak lamplight. Iruka instinctively looked away. "Whatever this is, it's not an illusion."

Not enemies. They were clearly from his village. It still took an effort of will to force the point of the sword down. "I…I don't know what happened," Iruka stammered. "We woke up in a field and we were attacked and…. M-my friend's been hurt. He might be dying. Please, you have to help him."

All three stared at him as if he were insane, but at the mention of the injury the woman blinked. "Someone's hurt? Where?"

"Over here." He grabbed up the lamp in one hand, her wrist in the other and led them back down the passageway.

The woman let out a gasp as the light fell over Kakashi's form – slumped boneless and exhausted on his side as if he had tried to rise, but failed. Iruka thought she was reacting to the state of him until she breathed, "Kakashi-sensei," and knelt to examine the boy.

"Will he be alright?" Iruka asked, but she gave no answer. Her hands, sheathed in green, gingerly lifted Kakashi's injured arm.

"Oh man, Kaka-sensei too?" the blond exclaimed, upon entering the cave behind them.

Iruka looked to him. "Why do you keep calling him that?"

The blond and the brunet exchanged a look. Then the dark-haired man spoke. "Do you know who I am? Or him?" He nodded to the blond.

"You bastard! Of course he does!"

But Iruka shook his head, adding a low, "Sorry," at the blond's stricken look.

The other man nodded. "I'm Sasuke, the idiot behind me is Naruto—"

"Hey!"

"And that's Sakura, over there."

Iruka took the names in numbly, not truly caring. He risked a glance at Kakashi, but he was still lying unconscious and Sakura was not paying Iruka any mind.

The blond man touched Iruka's shoulder to get his attention and knelt so that they were eye-to-eye. He had a set of strange marks on each cheek, Iruka realized. They looked almost like whiskers.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Naruto asked. "Start from the beginning."

And haltingly, Iruka did. He told them about teasing Anko, and waking up in a field with the dead men. How he and Kakashi had camped out. Then the attack by the enemy-nin, what they said and how they acted. And finally, to how they came to be in the cave here.

The dark one, Sasuke, nodded at the end and Naruto offered up a slightly wavering smile. "You did great, Iruka. Really, really great." He lifted his hand, almost as if he was going to ruffle Iruka's hair, but then stopped himself at the last moment. Replaced his hand on Iruka's shoulder. "We're going to take it over from here and Sakura… she's the best medic-nin around. Believe it. But now… I gotta tell you a story."

Sasuke made a sound of protest in the back of his throat and Naruto whipped around to glare at him. "You know how I feel about keeping secrets from people! Besides, he needs to know."

"Know what?" Iruka asked, looking between them.

Sasuke pressed his lips together, but didn't say anything more. Naruto must have taken that as tacit permission because he turned back to Iruka.

"Three weeks ago a team was sent out on an S-ranked mission to find out the reason why entire cells of jounin and chuunin from all the countries were going missing in this area. Souta-san, Kakashi-sensei and you. Souta returned, injured, but you two never made the meeting point. So Granny Tsunade sent us out to find and extract you if we could." He paused, took in a deep breath and the hands on Iruka's narrow shoulders tightened. "Iruka-sensei – you're supposed to be old. Well not old-old," he amended quickly. "But, uh, thirty, I think."

"Twenty-nine," Sasuke corrected.

"Right," Naruto said, as Iruka stared. "Anyway, you're a Chuunin – you're our old academy teacher and you, uh, even helped raise me a little."

Naruto stopped then and looked at Iruka expectantly, as if waiting for him to speak. But Iruka didn't know what to say, didn't know what to think at all. "Are you sure?" he asked, voice small. His mind reached out and gripped the very first thing that came to his thoughts. "I'm a Chuunin?"

The two exchanged another glance and Sasuke dipped his head in acknowledgement. "You could have been promoted to Special Jounin, but you've declined the exam several times, because you would rather teach at the Academy."

"Hey, I didn't know that," Naruto said, eyeing his teammate. "What, do you memorize people's files for fun or something?"

Sasuke didn't bat an eye. "Yes."

Iruka shook his head, feeling his face heat up. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I'm ten years old." He picked at his white shirt, now gone gray from days on the run. " _These_ are my clothes. I'm not – I can't be grown up! I don't know any of you!"

Naruto's lips thinned and he nodded. "Yeah… I don't know what happened – how any of this could be possible." He hesitated, then admitted, "I've never heard of anything like this. But, we'll get to the bottom of it," he added, with quick, cheery optimism.

"But… but…" Iruka felt too scattered to think clearly. He turned latching onto the only familiar thing in the room. "So, Kakashi too? He's not a kid?"

"He's our Jounin-sensei." Naruto said, with a smile that did not quite conceal the worry behind his eyes. "Our lazy, pervert sensei."

Iruka could only shake his head: Kakashi was many things, but lazy was not one of them.

As if on cue, Sakura stood. "I've stabilized him for now, but that cut in his arm was poisoned and I don't have all the ingredients in my medical supplies here. He'll have to be taken back to Konoha." She looked directly at Naruto. "His Sharingan is gone. It's as if he never had it at all."

"Sharingan?" Iruka repeated, weakly. Then he lifted his hand to touch under his own left eye, remembering that odd moment by the spring. One of Kakashi's eyes had looked _wrong_ to him, and he couldn't figure out why.

And slowly, he started to believe.

Naruto let out a long breath. "Okay, that's… strange." He looked to Sasuke for confirmation and only received a shrug in response. Naruto made a face in reply and turned to Iruka, crouching low. "Up on my back, Iruka-sens—ah, Iruka-kun," he corrected and muttered under his breath, to his team, "This is so weird."

Iruka couldn't help but agree.

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

* * *

Kakashi woke to a light touch to his chest. He came aware at once, although he was far too well trained to open his eyes and announce to any enemy that he was conscious. He took in a deep breath and registered the sharp scent of antiseptics mixing in with the pungent earthy richness of herbal medicines.

A hospital, then.

"I know you're awake, brat," said a very familiar voice above him. "Stop pretending to be asleep and report."

Kakashi blinked open his eyes. Lady Tsunade was leaning over him, all irritation and large breasts.

"Report," Kakashi repeated, and swiftly took stock of himself. He was lying in a hospital bed, garbed in a standard gown although some thoughtful person had replaced his regular fabric mask with the medical type. His right arm was swathed from wrist to shoulder in constricting white bandages and his chest felt tight and full at the same time – as if he were getting over a particularly nasty cold. Most importantly, he was alive. "To you?"

Tsunade's light brown eyes narrowed. "Name and rank."

"Hatake Kakashi," he answered, crisply. "Registration number 009720, Chuunin."

She nodded, her face as blank as a mask, giving away nothing. "And the date?"

At this, he hesitated. "I want to know the status of a teammate, Umino Iruka."

"He's adjusting," she said, eyes narrowing. "Answer the question, shinobi of Konoha."

 _Adjusting_? Kakashi thought, as he gave his answer. Well, at very least it sounded as if he were alive. But adjusting? To what?

Tsunade's expression betrayed nothing, but a dark haired woman behind her was busy with writing down Kakashi's answers and then looking up something in a thick folder. It was his own file, he realized. When had it become so thick?

"Twenty-three years, three months and seven days," the woman said, at last. "And nineteen years, six months and five days for Iruka-sensei."

Tsunade put her hand to her forehead. She looked like she was getting a headache.

"Should I know what that is?" Kakashi asked.

"That's how much age and memory you've lost, brat," Tsunade snapped.

Kakashi blinked and let himself absorb that for a quiet moment before he said, "You look the same."

"The Hokage-sama has always maintained her youthful appearance," the dark haired assistant piped up, from the back.

He stared at her. "Hokage? Her?"

"I need a drink," Tsunade groaned.

Kakashi's voice was cold. He _felt_ cold. "You are saying that I am actually thirty-three years old."

"Congratulations," said the Hokage flatly. "You and Iruka-kun somehow stumbled into the fountain of youth while on an S-ranked mission." She paused, eyes closing briefly. "As far as I can tell, all of your scars, your experiences and any knowledge you've gained since you were ten years old have been wiped away. I could find no evidence of broken bones I helped set myself," she added, the last bit in an almost frustrated snarl. "Konoha has lost four teams without any trace in that sector alone, and now one of my elite jounin and my best teacher come back as children. I need to know _why_."

Kakashi looked from her to the dark haired woman and back again. He had suspected that he and Iruka had been subjected to a memory modification, but… this?

"I need Jounin Hatake," Tsunade continued. She withdrew the scroll Iruka had retrieved from the attacking nin and lightly tossed it over. Kakashi caught it on instinct and glanced down at his own mark, etched in his handwriting. "Intelligence has not been able to open it without danger of it self-destructing. Try to remember what you've done – it's your scroll and it may contain the answers we need."

He turned it over in his hands, considering. Minato-sensei could do it. He had an irritating habit of being able to break every seal Kakashi could produce. But he wasn't here – he _always_ visited when Kakashi was injured.

It felt as if his heart had frozen in his chest. "Where is he?" Kakashi breathed, and looked up. "Where's Minato-sensei?"

The dark haired woman let out a little hiccupping gasp and Tsunade's angry features melted into something shocked… then grim. She shook her head, once.

"I'm sorry. He died close to seventeen years ago."

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

* * *

Kakashi heard the footsteps long before his visitors arrived. He raised his head, dully, and sat up as someone knocked once and the door to his hospital room opened.

"He's in here," said a pink-haired kunoichi, over her shoulder. She turned to Kakashi and graced him with a smile before she moved to the side and ushered someone else in.

Iruka stepped into view from behind her. His face lit up and he rushed over to Kakashi's bedside, calling out behind him, "Thanks, Sakura-san."

The woman, Sakura apparently, hovered for one awkward moment on the threshold, watching Kakashi and Iruka with something both sad and wistful in her eyes. Then she blinked and looked away, the door clicking softly behind her.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Iruka said, seating himself on the edge of Kakashi's cot, as if he belonged there. Kakashi couldn't find the energy to complain. Seeing his slightly strained expression, Iruka frowned. "You are getting better… Right?"

"As much as can be expected," Kakashi answered.

There was a wealth of regret underneath those words. Iruka's lips tightened and he drew his knees up to his chest. "Yeah." Someone had lent him a dark shirt with the sleeves a bit too long and a matching pair of dark pants with a rather vivid orange stripe running along the seams. The skin under his eyes was puffy, too, as if he had not gotten very much sleep over the last couple of days, but had done a lot of grieving.

"I got flowers and cards," Iruka said, nose wrinkling slightly. "From my _students_. One girl gave me an apple – she's older than me, but they all call me Sensei."

"I was a jounin," Kakashi said, with no feeling of pride whatsoever. It was hard to feel he had earned the promotion when he couldn't even remember it.

"I heard. Congratulations."

He shrugged, and wondered to himself if Minato-sensei had been alive to see it.

Iruka was quiet for a moment, then swallowed, looking down. "My parents are… gone. Naruto-san told me he would take me to see their…" he trailed off and swallowed hard, again, eyes suddenly wet. "I didn't want to. Not yet… None of this even seems real."

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said. Iruka's hand was there, lying inches from his own. His own fingers twitched, but he couldn't bring up the courage to get them to move. When he glanced up, he saw the other boy watching him.

"I'm sorry, too," he said, with a soft, soft look. And Kakashi knew that someone had told him of Minato-sensei – and Iruka had somehow known he didn't want to talk about it directly.

Kakashi only nodded his reply and they fell into a companionable silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Absently, Kakashi withdrew the scroll from behind his pillow: Tsunade had agreed to allow him to work on it while he recovered and as soon as Kakashi was released from the hospital he planned on finding out where his older self lived and going through his notes. The answer to all of this had to be somewhere.

Iruka sighed and rolled his eyes when Kakashi said as much.

"Good luck," he muttered. "Hokage-sama won't even tell me where I used to live. Naruto said something about letting me get settled before it blew my mind. Then Sakura-san hit him."

"And you let that stop you?" Kakashi asked, eyebrows raised.

A ghost of a smile flickered over Iruka's lips, and at that moment Kakashi saw again the mischievous brat who had walked up to the wagon out of spite, and who had refused to leave a downed companion even to save his own life. "No, but he's fast," Iruka said, with the air of someone who had tried to escape his assigned babysitter several times. "I think I taught him."

Kakashi didn't smile back, but it was as if a little of the cold fog he'd felt since hearing about Minato's death had begun to lift. Just a little.

"I'm a jounin," he said. "Or I will be again. Our mission was an S-class, top secret. So I'm certain the Hokage will give us access to whatever we need to open the scroll."

"Really?" Iruka's eyes widened in wonder. He clearly hadn't been informed of the mission's rank. He held out his hand. "Let me see it?"

Kakashi did and in the second they both gripped the scroll – Iruka holding one end and he the other – they both jerked a shock of chakra zipped through their hands. The thrill of the chakra felt old and familiar: it felt like home.

Iruka's eyes met his. "I don't understand. We've both held it before."

"Not together," Kakashi said. "Not like this." His fingers tentatively crept over, covering over Iruka's warm hand. The chakra under their palms rose – nearly sang – before it finally faded.

And with a tiny click, the locks upon the scroll disengaged.

"Someone should get the Hokage," Kakashi breathed.

"I will," Iruka said, the mischievous glint back in full force. " _After_ I see what's inside."

Kakashi started to protest: it wasn't proper, but Iruka had already scooted up to side with him, and his argument died in his throat. Together, they unrolled the scroll.

"At its root, the Reversed Life jutsu is similar to the Kamui," Kakashi read, the characters inked in his own efficient handwriting. "As it uses a warping of both time and space to alter its victims, starting back from a predefined set point."

"Down here." Iruka jabbed at a point near the bottom of the scroll, having either skipped ahead or else was a faster reader. "Kakashi… I think it's a way to counteract the jutsu!"

He took in a sharp breath, eyes scanning the scroll. "Get the Hokage."

This time Iruka obeyed, sliding off the cot and racing out the door.

It only took a few minutes for Tsunade return with her assistant and Iruka trailing behind.

"Finally," she said, snatching the opened scroll and scanning it. "Hmm… it only opened to the both of you?" She scowled. "If I'm able to fix this, remind me to yell at you for being so damned sentimental, Hatake."

The assistant hid her smile by being busy with her clipboard while the boys exchanged confused glances.

"Hmm," Tsunade said again, after what felt like a small eternity. "Well it seems straight forward enough." She lowered the scroll to look directly at the both of them. "But as all of this is completely untested, there will be a measure of risk. Konoha needs your skills as adults, but I also want to give you a choice." She paused. "This could be a second chance, for the both of you."

To his own mild chagrin, Kakashi felt himself hesitate. He knew nothing of Jounin Hatake, although he gathered from bits and pieces (said and unsaid) that he was at least well respected. Still, he would be putting himself at risk to become someone who was practically a stranger.

It was Iruka who surprised him. He shook his head after only a moment's thought.

"I want to try, Hokage-sama. It's clear I have a life here with good friends and students who need me. I couldn't be there for them if I stayed like this to grow up all over again. It would be like I was abandoning them."

Tsunade smiled tightly at him. "That is a very mature observation; one I would expect from Iruka-sensei. Very well." She looked to Kakashi. "Brat?"

He hesitated only a moment longer, glancing at Iruka. "I choose to take the risk as well."

She nodded. "It should only take me a few minutes to prepare."

After a quick consultation with her assistant, Tsunade directed both boys to stand side by side. Her hands flashed through the seals and Kakashi's vision became washed in green…

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

* * *

"Get back here!" Iruka heard Anko shriek. Then, "I'm going to gut you!"

Iruka turned and sprinted across the top of the roof, prize in hand and flapping behind him like a flag of victory. And despite the fact he could hear Anko leap the roof and gaining on him with every step, he still laughed – loud and carefree.

The roof slanted down from its apex and came to an abrupt end. There was another roof out beyond, a few feet too far away to be counted as anything like a safe distance.

He gathered as much chakra as he could in his feet and leapt…

… and fell short.

His grabbed for the edge of the roof, fingers catching briefly. But his weight and momentum were too much to hold on. Iruka slipped and fell with a short cry, landing in a clatter of trashcans. He rolled, somehow gained his feet – and then ran headlong into someone's chest.

Iruka bounced back and fell right on his butt. The other person didn't so much as take a step back.

There was a solid thump as Anko landed behind them.

"Back off!" she said aggressively. "He's mine."

"Is he?" the other drawled, and Iruka looked up to see a boy several years older than himself standing there. He was tallish, more lithe than bulky, with wild silver hair. There was a skintight mask covering half of his face and his Leaf headband pulled down to cover his left eye. The teen's visible eye curved at him. "Nice bra."

Iruka looked down – the clasp of Anko's lacy red bra had become somehow caught on the under-mesh of his sleeve. He flushed and hurriedly ripped it away.

Anko stepped forward. "This isn't your business, Kakashi-san."

"You're right," Kakashi said and Iruka felt his heart plummet. He was dead. "But I was interested to know what was causing so much noise and interrupting my reading." His stance was casual, even lazy, but there was something ice-cold under the words as he focused again on Anko. "You're Orochimaru's newest apprentice, are you not? I'm sure he would be _very_ interested to hear that you were causing a scene."

As Iruka watched in shock, all of the color drained from Anko's face. Was she afraid? _Anko?_

"I see," Kakashi murmured. He reached down, plucked the bra off the ground with no apparent embarrassment at all and tossed it back. Anko caught it out of the air, and again Kakashi's visible eye curved up. "Then let's keep it between ourselves, shall we?"

Anko clenched her free hand so hard her knuckles turned white, and if looks could kill Iruka would surely have been a small pile of ash on the ground. Then she turned and stalked off.

Iruka let out a sigh of relief and he climbed to his feet. The teen didn't help him, only watched with mild curiosity.

"Thank you," Iruka said, bowing.

He shrugged. "As I said, all the noise interrupted my reading." Kakashi then reached into the pocket of his jounin-vest, pulled out a garish orange book, and continued on his way as if nothing had happened.

Iruka watched him go. For a heartbeat of time the boy had seemed… familiar. But the moment was over almost before it started and the last he saw of Hatake Kakashi was his back as he flash-stepped out of the alley completely. As if he expected Iruka to believe he had just been hanging around in the shadows, reading that book. Right.

"What a strange guy," Iruka muttered, brushed himself free of the worst of the street-dust, and took off to find where Mizuki had run off to.

* * *

 **OoOoOoO**

* * *


	4. Epilogue

 

  


  


* * *

A little over nineteen and a half years later.

* * *

Iruka had his head stuck in the fridge and was in the process of fishing out a head of cabbage when he heard the sound of his front door opening.

"Dry yourself off before you come in, Naruto!" he yelled, pointing blindly behind himself to where he had hung a towel right in the entrance-way. Konoha was experiencing its third straight day of rain and he did not want to have his floor dripped on.

"Maa, you're always so strict, sensei."

Iruka jerked at the familiar drawl and nearly brained himself on one of the low refrigerator shelves. "Kakashi?" He stood and turned, gaping at the jounin. "You're back from the mission already?"

Kakashi waved two fingers lightly at him in greeting, head mostly hidden as he scrub-dried his hair with the towel. When he was done his silver hair stuck up even more than usual. "I'm back from the mission already," he confirmed.

Which was either a very good thing or a very bad one. Iruka swallowed. "Dinner's almost ready. I was expecting Naruto sometime tonight so there will be more than enough." And he ducked back to retrieve the cabbage again.

As he cooked, he felt more than heard Kakashi's presence inside the small house – their house, which they had shared for almost three years now. No wonder Naruto had not wanted to show his child-self where he had lived – first visiting the bathroom and then ambling back to recline upon their low couch.

Iruka brought dinner out and Kakashi ate like he'd had nothing but ration bars for days.

Smiling slightly, Iruka watched him and thought again of the younger version of Kakashi: the proud, stubborn genius who had carried his shinobi way in his heart and loved his sensei like a father. True, it had not been an authentic representation of Kakashi as a child, but some mix of a young body with adult wisdom.

The jutsu which had hit them both had been cast by the last dying nin on the battlefield – incomplete – and succeeding in turning them into ten-year-olds instead of ten-month-olds, as had been intended.

Looking back now, safely within hindsight, Iruka knew there were threads of his adult self in his child form; some of his fighting ability, a little more maturity perhaps, and of course his love for Kakashi.

Kakashi finally slowed down eating enough to catch Iruka watching him. With a lecherous grin he sat his empty plate down, gripped Iruka by the waist and pulled him nearly into his lap. Iruka made a surprised sound; it took all of his ninja skill not to tip his own plate and instead put it safely to the side.

Kakashi's mask was still lowered below his chin from his meal and he bit lightly at Iruka's exposed neck. When the other man squirmed, he licked a hot line up to his jaw. "My hero," he murmured.

He flushed. "Don't call me that."

"Hmm," Kakashi rumbled against him. "You stayed by my side when you easily could have run, when I ordered you to. Seems pretty heroic to me, sensei." And he tipped his head up, mouth moving against Iruka's, and gave him a proper welcoming kiss.

Iruka wanted to argue the point, but the heat of Kakashi's lips – the missed and familiar scent of him – drove those thoughts from his mind. Iruka's fingers wound themselves into Kakashi's wiry hair, and the other hand became busy unzipping the jounin's flack jacket. He pushed it away and resettled himself more comfortably on Kakashi's lap, knees on either side of the other man's thighs.

It had been too long since they had a moment like this: Kakashi had been assigned for a mop-up and rescue mission only an hour after they had been restored to adulthood. Once Iruka and Kakashi had given their full reports, Tsunade had known there hadn't been any time to spare.

The kiss ended slowly, reluctantly, and Kakashi didn't fully pull away, but instead pressed upwards so that his lips were a bare inch from Iruka's ear.

"We were able to double-back to our previous location," Kakashi whispered and Iruka went still, knowing he was hearing the secrets of an S-class mission – one he was no longer a part of – but he didn't ask Kakashi to stop.

"Your guess was right, sensei," Kakashi said.

Iruka closed his eyes. "We had been betrayed." His suspicion was the reason why Kakashi had insisted on double-locking the scroll with both of their chakra signatures.

Kakashi's brief silence was as good as a yes. "Souta-san has been carrying classified information to the outpost about Leaf. Presumably there are other traitors from the other countries who have been missing shinobi. Apparently, someone has been indeed continuing Orochimaru's work, and decided to stock up their population with proven shinobi of their own."

Iruka clenched his fists. "How many?"

Again, Kakashi was quiet a moment before he spoke. "We found thirty-four infants and toddlers. Of those, we were able to restore seven using the counter-jusu. Apparently, there is a time limit." He sighed against Iruka's ear and pulled back, Sharingan eye closed, and a humorless smile on his face. "I'm afraid you'll be seeing some familiar faces in your class in a few years."

"…I see."

It would be difficult, he knew, not to treat the children as the adults they once were, but as brand new students, free of any baggage from their past.

Kakashi's soft smile said that he understood and when he kissed Iruka again, it was something slow, something profoundly grateful. Two children should not have been able to survive a day out in enemy territory – working together, they had nearly made it three. And against all odds, they had gotten themselves out, intact. Shinobi life was filled with peril. Coming back alive was a celebration.

And Kakashi set about showing Iruka just how heroic he thought he was.

Naruto wisely found somewhere else to eat that night.

 _~ Fin ~_

  



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